Like a shadow made manifest, Poet stalked toward one of the vista points. The heels of his boots struck the stones. With his profile tilted away from me, the jester angled his head in thought. “Congratulations,” he applauded. “I’m so pissed off I haven’t yet thought of changing into a fresh velvet coat, perhaps accessorizing with a bit of rustic trim to complement the setting.”
I licked my lips. “Poet—”
“My princess and I have been preoccupied, you see. I’ve been having a murder tantrum, and she’s been fighting to calm me down. Because an hour ago, I wanted to rip your fucking heart out.”
It took everything in me not to retreat a step. Always, I had idolized and adored this man. From the time I was a child, he protected me like a niece and had never uttered a single destructive word to my face.
“Alas, that was the father in me,” Poet countered in a hollow tone. “I have a tendency to overreact when my son is sleeping in the midst of a spy. Someone in cahoots with the same man who would see Nicu dead.” He drew in a long, shrewd breath. “But the jester knows differently.”
Cunning. Deceptive.
A history of duping the Spring Crown. All to protect the people he cherished.
Yes, the jester knew differently. As did the princess. They had played their own versions of political chess many times.
Still. The wisest couple on this continent wouldn’t forgive on a whim, even for someone they cared about. That was their strength, as well as their burden.
“I had to choose,” I appealed. “My honesty or your safety. Including my mother’s safety.”
“Rhys has been targeting us for years, regardless of who was on his side.” Poet’s head twisted, his jaw cutting a line in my direction. “And I daresay, we’ve done a splendid job targeting him back without needing extra protection. More than once, we mopped the floor with that shithead enough times to start a cleaning service. In which case, we could have kept your mother from harm in the castle. You only needed to say the word.”
“I wasn’t going to risk it,” I maintained. “Not where Mama was concerned. And although confessing wouldn’t havemade you any more of a target than you already were, I had a direct outlet to bring Rhys down, an opportunity to steer him in the wrong direction.” I panned over to Briar. “For that, I needed to win his trust.”
The jester and princess evaluated those words with caution. After swapping a glance with her husband, Briar’s shoulders lowered a fraction.
“Strategic,” she concurred. “It’s a move we haven’t tried. We’ve had no opportunity to seize that advantage.”
“Until you,” Poet remarked, his frame swerving toward me.
Briar joined him. “Aire has been pleading your case nonstop.”
“Pleading is not the word I would use,” the jester drawled. “He raged like a bull to the point where I’m stunned Jeryn’s ears didn’t bleed, which would have been the only perk of Aire’s tirade.”
“Nicu has pleaded your case as well,” the princess continued, then raised an eyebrow. “And another witness has spoken on your behalf.”
I gasped as she withdrew my acorn from her mantle pocket. According to Poet and Briar, the clan searched my cabin and found nothing incriminating. However, Aire presented my hooded cloak with the tasseled acorn, a gift from the oak, from the night I destroyed the camp.
Because Briar had developed a kinship with that tree, she traveled there hours ago with Poet. Approaching the oak, the princess asked if the recipient of that acorn had entered Rhys’s camp with insubordinate intentions.
The oak tree confirmed my intentions toward the knights. Despite the sting across my markings, hearing this news flooded me with warmth. Whatever happened, hopefully the clan wouldallow me to tell Mama, to soothe her worries, maybe ease her affliction.
My pulse steadied. “What else did Aire show you?”
Briar’s aloofness thawed a fraction. “What do you think he showed us?”
“Maybe something resembling a vial. One that’s fit for an impotent Royal who repels his wife.”
Despite the residual fury, Poet’s mouth twitched. Likewise, confirmation flashed across his wife’s features.
“Perhaps you’re right,” she hinted.
“Then maybe it’s a solution to beat Rhys,” I suggested in a rush. “Not through his army, his spies, or his death.”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” the jester scoffed, fluttering his fingers in the air. “I have a healthy appetite. There’s always room for that man’s dead carcass, preferably on my dessert plate.”
I repressed a somber grin. “Sounds like we’ve got the same diet.”
Poet’s amusement dimmed. In the harsh reflection of a constellation, his eyes narrowed. “Do we?”
